Waters has already faced scrutiny for paying her daughter hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign funds
Progressive firebrand Rep. Maxine Waters (D., Calif.) is in hot water with the Federal Election Commission for violating campaign finance laws during her 2020 campaign.
Waters’s campaign agreed to pay a $68,000 fine on Friday after the FEC determined the California Democrat knowingly accepted $19,000 in excessive contributions during her 2020 campaign, the FEC said in a conciliation agreement. Waters also made $7,000 in “prohibited cash disbursements” that election cycle to reimburse “Get Out The Vote” canvassers in violation of FEC regulations that prohibit campaigns from making any cash payments over $100. The Waters campaign said it issued the cash payments because the COVID-19 pandemic made it difficult for her canvassers to process checks.
An attorney for the Waters campaign did not dispute wrongdoing in the matter, saying the financial errors “were not willful or purposeful.”
“The errors were primarily a result of limited staff availability and resources during the pandemic,” the Waters campaign attorney, Leilani Beaver, wrote in a letter to the FEC. Beaver added that Waters “refunded or disgorged” the excess contributions.
The FEC fine is the latest blemish for Waters, who has long faced scrutiny for her campaign’s questionable dealings with her daughter, Karen Waters. FEC records show the California Democrat has paid her daughter more than $818,000 through her campaign since 2004, primarily to produce slate mailers, or endorsement mailers, which contain sample ballots and quotes of support from Waters to candidates that make payments to her campaign.
The FEC dismissed a complaint against Waters in 2021 alleging her slate mailer operation violated campaign finance laws.
The Waters campaign said it retained legal counsel to provide guidance to its treasurer and implemented new procedures to ensure the financial accuracy of its reports. The campaign also agreed to send its treasurer to a “Commission-sponsored training program for political committees.”
The FEC ruled unanimously in a four-to-zero decision on April 19 to impose the fine against Waters’s campaign, Open Secrets reported.
Waters has re-emerged as an outspoken opponent of President Donald Trump since the start of his second term in January. She urged her followers to “hit the streets and fight back” against Trump, echoing the sorts of threats she frequently issued during the president’s first term.
In 2017, Waters told a crowd of supporters to “go and take Trump out tonight,” and, in 2018, the California Democrat urged her followers to accost Trump administration officials in public.
“If you see anybody from that cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd,” Waters said in 2018. “You push back on them, and you tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere.”
Waters did not return a request for comment.